Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.

Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous."

Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.

You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job.... These seeming amusements in fact become your 'style.' When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.

I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.

You learn to write by writing.